


P.O.R.T.A.L

by Star_less



Series: P.O.R.T.A.L verse [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Accidents, Age Play, Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Baby Bruce, Baby Tony, Baby Wanda, Bed-Wetting, Coulson Lives, Daddy Steve, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Littles Are Known, Long, Long Shot, Non-Sexual Age Play, Not Canon Compliant, Nursery setting, Phil Coulson Has the Patience of a Saint, Posted Elsewhere, Pouting, Silly, Temper Tantrums, Whiny Babies, alternate universe - littles are known, baby Loki, bottles, caregiver coulson, everybody gets along and things are fluffy and lovely, mama natasha, maybe ooc?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-09 04:24:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16442924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_less/pseuds/Star_less
Summary: PORTAL was, effectively, SHIELD's answer to a daycare. "Preschool fOr Regressed, Traumatised And Other Littles" was its full title, although 'PFRTAOL' didn't quite have the same ring to it.Join newly classified littles Tony, Bruce, Wanda, Clint, and Loki during their adventures at P.O.R.T.A.L, and their long suffering caregiver Phil Coulson. Tantrums, toys and tears await.





	P.O.R.T.A.L

**Author's Note:**

> I kinda knocked this up in about two weeks because for some reason whenever I have important work to do all I want to do is write dumb fanfics like this. This is... honestly a hot mess. I've basically taken everybody from their respective narrations and just stitched them back together in a way that suits the plot... what was that about infinity war? that little thing about Loki totally offing Coulson? and getting taken back to Asgard? and the Avengers not liking him?  
> What about that thing about Wanda despising Tony Stark? LIES. ALL LIES. EVERYONE GETS ALONG. 
> 
> Seriously though, this is a little bit silly, a little bit ooc BUT THERE ARE BABIES. read it if you enjoy this sort of thing, you might enjoy it :)

"Papa?" Tony's voice came out silky but high pitched as he dipped his spoon into his cereal bowl and (shakily, painstakingly, with as much concentration as he could possibly muster up) brought a spoonful of milky Cheerios up to his mouth.

"Hmm?" Steve asked sweetly, placing down his mug of coffee and swallowing, looking across the table at Tony - yes, the one and only Tony Stark - in his duckling-patterned onesie with a pacifier clipped to the zip. He wasn't dressed immaculately as one would usually expect of Tony Stark; rather the opposite. His hair stuck up in bedheaded wisps, he had the aforementioned onesie, and he was currently dribbling milk down his front as if he had all of the dexterity of a two year old. Well... to be perfectly honest, that figure wasn't too far off. SHIELD had only recently filed through Tony's classification results; he was a Little, currently functioning at the level of a four year old. Sometimes it fluctuated, and he could function at much much less - or the opposite, and he could function at a much higher age, too. How did Steve know all of this information? Easy. SHIELD had chivvied him into getting classified alongside Stark - something about 'biologically innate status', whatever that was... and had been classified (much to his great relief) as a Caregiver. SHIELD's response to that was one of little surprise other than, 'Great! Here's a suitable Little for you to work with,' and...  
And lo and behold, that Little happened to be none other than Tony Stark. "You have to be kidding me," was Steve's response; hell, Stark was the last person on Earth he had thought would have a Little side; although the world had a funny way of proving him wrong what seemed like every single day. 

"C'n I go to Portal t'day?" Tony's words were muffled, slurred, unintelligible to anyone but his Caregiver, as he fought not to dribble yet more milk and mashed up Cheerio down his front. Steve simply chuckled, having almost forgotten that Wanda, Clint and Bruce had already been packed off by Natasha, eagerly awaiting Tony's arrival. "Of course you can, duckling. Finish your breakfast and we can get you dressed." he leaned over the table, conscious of the jug of orange juice he'd set out, and mopped at Tony's messy face with a wad of kitchen towel. Predictably the young child resisted, letting out yowl after whine and thrashing as if Steve had just offered for him to brush his teeth with a sardine rather than something as mundane as clearing up. "Tony!" Steve chuckled again despite himself, his tone very slightly admonishing and just a tiny bit brittle, "You want to look squeaky clean, don't you? I'm sure you don't want Coulson to have to bath you again." he reminded. Gasping, Tony submitted under Steve's touch at once causing the supersoldier to inwardly beam. "No Papa." he said decisively, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

Last time Tony had to be bathed at Portal he had to share the tub with Loki; and had returned from his afternoon session vowing to never share the tub with Loki ever again, before coming down with the world's worst cold that had him and Steve surviving on three hours of sleep a night for three weeks. Loki was most remorseful, bless him; although the trickster wasn't exactly fond of bath time with Tony either.  
So... what was Portal, you ask...?  
PORTAL was, effectively, SHIELD's answer to a daycare. "Preschool fOr Regressed, Traumatised And Other Littles" was its full title, although 'PFRTAOL' didn't quite have the same ring to it. SHIELD, fond of acronyms as they were, essentially said 'fuck it' and so Portal became a branch of SHIELD that was ghosted off to anyone but potential caregivers and Littles.  
As the government rules on classification began to grow more stringent, the Avengers had been rolled out into the classification programme; and came out of it with too many Littles than they knew how to deal with. The Littles were deemed too Little to work but the Caregivers had to balance not only their responsibilities with SHIELD and the Avengers, but their responsibilities in looking after their Little on top of picking up the work that their Little had left behind. Enter Portal; the place where the Littles went if their caregiver had a busy day ahead... usually into the sedate, loving arms of SHIELD's finest, Phil Coulson. Which was no different today.  
~

“Come on, come on!” Wanda cooed excitedly to Tony the second he stepped foot into PORTAL, hyper actively bouncing up toward him in her sparkly pink tutu and grabbing both of his hands in her own before he even had a chance to flinch backward. “Mr. C says we can do some painting now,” She beamed, gesturing to where the elder caregiver was in the midst of layering old newspapers down onto the freshly cleared breakfast table. Hearing his name Phil looked up, nodded encouragingly, gestured to the wide table. “Yes, Tony. Come and join us!”  
Bruce was there too, sat patiently hands-in-lap; Loki pooled just next to him in a comically large emerald green feather boa that took up his entire face. Tony could just about make out Loki’s eyes squinting mischievously (if one could even squint in such a way) at the luridly coloured paint sat in thick blobs on child sized palettes. He looks as though he is trying to judge whether he should plunge his hand into the glistening yellow paint, or perhaps the blue. A smile spread wide over Tony’s face, one that reached right up to his eyes and lit them up. “Okay,” he murmured shyly, blushing as Wanda squealed cheerfully in his ears. She dragged him to a spare chair and pushed him down into it bossily. Tony whimpered a little as he was sent crashing bottom first onto the large plastic stool. He had a pull-up underneath (after plenty of not-so-nice words at Papa because ‘everybody else wears big kid pants at Portal!’. ‘No they didn’t,’ Papa said, ‘but they - almost - all wore Pull-Ups and so would Tony when he was ready.’ Tony wasn’t fond of that idea, and so here he was;) which crinkled noisily as though he were sitting on tissue paper. Unfortunately, it did little to protect his bottom from the impact and big, babyish tears of shock welled in his eyes. 

“Wanda!” Coulson chided gently, seeing Tony on the verge of crying. “Gentle. He’s littler than you,” the caregiver reminded. Wanda was a big girl of seven (or ‘nearly eight and a quarter,’ she would tell you if you asked,) although sometimes she would forget things like this. 

“Oh!” she gasped lightly, softly - slightly theatrically - squeezing Tony’s hand. “I’m so sorry!”  
“S’okay,” Tony mumbled with a faint blush — because he had more important things to do, like grabbing a thick paintbrush and dunking it determinedly into a dollop of blue paint. Aside him, Loki had finally given into temptation and had slammed his whole hand into a blob of green paint, smiling in satisfaction as he thrust it onto his paper and there, dripping, was his handprint.  
~

“What are you drawing, Tony?” Wanda asked sweetly as she dumped yet another canister of purple glitter atop her lurid pink scribbles and looked sideways at Tony’s own multicoloured mess.  
“Me and Papa,” Tony said in a ‘duh’ sort of voice, as if the vaguely round blue and red bloats on his paper looked the spitting image of him and his caregiver. He had just about finished, and his hand was covered in a mosaic of red blue and purple smudges.  
Wanda nodded, and rapidly turned her attention to Bruce. “Whattabout you, Bruce?”  
Bruce blushed hard, curling in tighter against his paper and scribbled some more. “Me and Mama.” He mumbled. Wanda frowned, nudging his splayed-out arms. “Let me see.” She whined. Giving in, Bruce moved his arms a fraction - just enough for Wanda to see a scribbled flash of bright red hair.  
Appeased, Wanda nodded approvingly and then promptly decided it was time to scrutinise Loki’s drawing instead. “Loki, what is that?” She asked bluntly, wrinkling her nose. As if on cue Tony, Bruce and Clint all looked over to scrutinise Loki’s picture, too. There was a moment of silence before Bruce piped up with a chipper, “Horses don’t have eight legs, Loki!”There was a bubble of agreement around the entire table. _Eight legs? What good did eight legs do for a horse? What a silly idea._ Loki did not seem to care; in fact he was decidedly unfazed by this declaration. What did they know?“This horse does,” he nodded in a matter-of-fact sort of way, hunching over his paper and scribbling determinedly, colouring in the dapple of the equine’s octolegs with as much concentration as he could possibly muster. “He is called Sleipnir. He is my horse.” Loki said finally, once the horse had been coloured in; not stumbling once over his words and still very much matter of fact. Tony still had his head bent over Loki’s picture as though he was totally bewildered by it. _A horse, with eight legs? Loki must have been telling lies._ “Who is that?” He asked, pointing at the person that was stood near Sleipnir. It did not look like Loki, nor did it look like Thor. Perhaps it was Loki’s mommy, Tony thought.  
(If it was, she was pretty.)  
“That is a Valkyrie.” Loki beamed mischievously, fidgeting in his chair with pent up excitement. “Thor says I can be a Valkyrie when I grow up, even though they are all girls.” A look of pride drifted onto the God of Mischief’s face and stayed there as though this was the ultimate achievement; as though his brother had the power to force Loki into the Valkyries by sheer dint of... well, being his amazing, magic, big brother.

Tony looked at Loki, soaking up this proud look. So did Wanda. So did Bruce.  
(So did Coulson, as interested as ever, although he’d never admit it.)

“What do Valkyries do?” Wanda asked politely, interested. Loki’s eyes snapped open and he all but lit up, fidgeting animatedly. “They’re warriors,” he explained, too awe struck to be shy about the whole thing. “They... they fight a lot. They are brave and strong and I’m gonna be the leader of ‘em all.” He beamed. 

Wanda’s gaze by this point matched Loki’s, all starry eyed. “Fight?” She asked in a whisper. 

Loki nodded animatedly once more and jumped from his chair, grinning. “Yes! Like this!” He said theatrically, arms outstretched, kicking and punching invisible tormentors excitedly as he wound his way around the table - punctuated by enthusiastic ‘hyah!’ sort of noises.  
Coulson was watching with the tiniest hints of a smile on his face, although he could see what was going to happen before it had even happened - caregivers were good like that. “Loki,” he said softly, warningly. “Loki, watch out for the water pots, okay?” he reminded, eyeing the jam jars of murky paint-y water.  
Loki seemed to be lost in his own world, continuing to punch and kick - encouraged by the giggling and ‘ooooh’s from his friends that Coulson’s voice was lost to him, a whisper lost in the giggles and shouts from his imaginary world. 

Clearing his throat, Coulson tried again, this time slightly louder. “Loki, you’re going to hit the—“

Clunk.

“...Oops.” Loki froze in place, staring in horror as his hand connected with the water pot and sent it tumbling over almost in slow motion. That would have been bad enough; what made it worse was the fact that the muddy brown water was streaming out over Bruce’s painting.  
Time seemed to slow down.  
“My painting!” Bruce whimpered tearfully, snapping the entire room back to reality. His shoulders shook and his chin wobbled and his face got all funny and hot as though he was going to cry. His brows knitted together; his gaze locked on Loki. “You ruined my painting!” He howled.  
He wasn’t too shouty or angry, nothing like when the Hulk took over, but still Loki was scared. He opened his mouth, and closed it again, and opened it again finding that he was lost for words and yet at the same time thrown back to when the Hulk had beaten him and he had lay bruised and battered and terrified. He... he didn’t want that to happen again. “I- I’m sorry!” Loki squeaked at long last, hands protectively over his head, stumbling over his own ankles in an attempt to back away from Bruce... who was beginning to turn an alarmingly Hulk-like shade of green. 

“My painting! That was a painting for my mama!” Bruce raged, gritting his teeth and flailing, charging toward Loki unrelenting even as Loki tried to run for cover.  
“M’sorry, don’t hurt me!” Loki wailed hopelessly, tears prickling his eyes which quickly began to trickle down his cheeks. He cowered, hands over his head, curled tight into a ball to protect himself just in case Bruce decided to knock him out. Somewhere along the way - Loki was too panic stricken to realise - it became clear that all of the child’s fidgeting earlier on may not have entirely been due to excitement; as a thin but rapidly spreading puddle began to spread around the trembling and terror stricken child. “Oh, shit,” was Coulson’s response to this (modified to a much tamer, ‘Oh no’ for when Wanda piped up cheerfully, ‘Mr. C, Loki made a puddle!’); he had just about corralled off Bruce onto one of the other caregivers for some calm-down time and... hadn’t been paying enough attention to Loki to realise. “Loki,” he called softly, closing in. 

_A hand._  
_There was a hand on his back._ The hand landed on Loki’s back and he yowled, every instinct in his body telling him to lash out. But... but if it was the Hulk, he would get beaten... “Get off me, get off me!” He pleaded uselessly instead, his voice tight and tense with tears. “Loki, shh,” a voice said in return, not removing their hand, and so Loki relaxed just a little. Through his hiccupy sobs and the tears in his eyes, he vaguely recognised that Coulson was there; blinking up at the elder through long tear soaked lashes, he spoke. “It was an accident,” he whined.  
“I know, sprout, we’re going to clean you up now.” Coulson replied. Loki was most confused by this, for he was perfectly clean and didn’t want a bath; but it was then that he tuned into the cold itchy sensation on his inner thighs. He snivelled unhappily as Coulson tugged him off toward the bathroom. 

“Do you want a pull up?” Coulson dared to ask once they were alone. “No.” was the instant and most grouchy response. “I can control myself just fine thank you very much.”  
Ah. Perhaps he wasn’t feeling so little any more. “Fine.” Coulson relented, secretly holding onto the fact that Loki hadn’t let go of his hand yet as an indicator of where his mental state was. “Do you need help getting changed?” he asked, although he knew the answer.  
“I am not an infant.” Loki snapped. Coulson nodded, relenting once more. “Fine. Go and change.” he encouraged; which was exactly what Loki did. 

He returned in a different outfit; blue and yellow compared to his usual black and green — and much more sullen. “You can help me and Rhodes wrangle the children.” Coulson told him. Interestingly, this proposition only made the frown on Loki’s face grow heavier. He grunted in agreement and the two walked in silence down the solitary corridor together. “I heard the children want to play dressing up,” the elder caregiver said conversationally, relishing the fact that - try as he might - Loki was unable to keep a look of wide eyed interest off of his face. “Oh?” the God asked, trying his hardest to quash any hints that he may be even the slightest bit interested. Coulson nodded again. “You can help us dress the children.” He reminded, biting back a smile as Loki’s shoulders sunk. “Unless...”

A look was shared.

“Unless you would like to dress up with them.”

Loki broke gaze first, glancing at his shoes. “No.” He decided. “I am not a child.”

“...You could dress up as a Valkyrie.” 

The look returned. 

Loki fidgeted. 

A minute came, and hung in the air.

“I need a horse.” He said softly.  
There was some thought.  
“With wings.”

“I’ll make sure you get the hobby horse first.” Coulson agreed easily. Loki beamed; not the malicious smile his adult self was fond of, but one of true, unadulterated childish happiness. 

“Deal.”  
~

Coulson was a man of his word and for that, Loki thanked him. When they re-entered the nursery room the caregiver had managed to sweet talk Wanda into giving up the hobby horse; Loki had fussed ‘because it was _pink_ , and the Valkyrie’s steeds were not _pink_ , how silly!’ but had taken it all the same and was now galloping around the dressing up area with Tony at his side. “No! No, Anthony... like this, you need to...” he waved his arms dramatically as if waving an imaginary sword. “Like that!”  
Tony giggled, copying. “Pew. Pew! Never gonna defeat us,” He parroted babyishly as the two Valkyrie’s-in-training slayed their imaginary tormentors.   
Loki nodded excitedly. “The final villain!” He wailed in his best theatrical-production voice, pointing at Wanda who was kneeling obliviously a short way away playing with a dolly. “Loki’s magic will defeat her!”  
“Yeah!” Tony whooped... only to abruptly fall still. “You have magic? No! That’s not fair! I want magic too!” He whined, thinking it nothing more than Loki trying to be better than him. 

Loki paused, and for a moment their roleplay world fell apart and dissolved back into the ever familiar nursery; his face crumpling in confusion. “You... you can’t be magic. Only I’m magic.” He blustered.   
“I want magic too!” Tony demanded tearfully, stomping up to Loki.   
Again Loki recoiled. “You... you can’t!” He repeated pleadingly, looking at his hands and seeing the thinnest green wisps erupt from them. “Not in playtime,” he clarified, taking a big breath, “In real.”  
This declaration seemed to transform the angry looking frown on Tony’s face into a frown of confusion, or perhaps disbelief. He sunk somewhat. “You don’t have real magic.” He murmured suspiciously, slowly circling the little God. “No one gets to do real magic.”  
“I do have real magic!” Loki whined, bouncing up and down on his toes impatiently. He sighed and looked around. Thor had always told him off if he used his magic to get into mischief. But Mama had taught him to hone his skills long ago, and he really was quite good at controlling his magic now as a grown up, so _maybe_... if nobody noticed...  
He shuffled in close to Tony and tried his hardest to whisper. “I can show you. But. Don’t tell on me.”  
Tony’s eyes widened, star-filled and awestruck. Mouth dropping open into an unsure (but wicked) ‘o’, he nodded furtively. Loki relaxed, beamed, and looked at the tips of his fingers. They were letting out thin wisps of green light as he concentrated. For a moment nothing happened. Loki was frowning. Like he was thinking really, really hard. Or at least, that’s what it looked like to Tony. Then again, it also kinda looked as though he was pooping. Yeuch. Tony giggled to himself.  
His giggling caused Loki’s eyes to snap open and his brow to furrow. “No, shhhh,” the little God pleaded. And then... then he...  
...disappeared?  
It was as if he had melted through the floor. “Loki...” Tony frowned, looking around him, shooting words at the spot on the carpet he had melted through. “Loki... where did you go?”  
He looked up, but only saw Wanda playing with a doll and humming gently to herself. Every now and then she would whine — usually whenever Bruce and Clint interrupted her, trying to bat them away.   
(Bruce and Clint were sat next to her, pushing large plastic trucks around.)  
“Wanda, have you seen where Loki went?” Tony asked.  
Wanda looked up, mentally pausing the fashion show that her and her Barbie were having. “No,” she said sweetly, clutching the Barbie protectively in one hand so the boys wouldn’t steal her and hold her for ransom.   
She thought for a moment. “Perhaps he’s pottying.” At this, the boys giggled too, and broke away from their own game.   
Suddenly, there, right in front of their eyes, the Barbie doll that Wanda had been playing with disappeared... and dissolved into a lizard instead. 

A lizard with a long scaly tail.  
A lizard with a warm squishy belly and slimy dribbly tongue that licked it’s slimy goopy wetness up Wanda’s cheeks.  
...A lizard in a hot pink Barbie sized halter neck dress.  
Wanda squealed in upset and (without thinking) entirely instinctively threw the creature across the room. The lizard sailed through the air like a bullet (in a hot pink Barbie sized halter neck dress) but, at the last second (just when it looked as though Loki— Er, Lizard— was about to crash to the floor with a deafening thud) the reptile teleported and landed with a softer thunk into Tony’s lap.   
Just as Wanda had, Tony squealed - but he was pleased. “He... he likes me!” he announced cheerfully, lifting up the lizard to get a closer look and ‘oooh’ing softly as it scrabbled about in his grip before settling on his shoulder like a bird on a perch. “Come on, lizard, let’s go and play.” Tony decided, taking the lizard toward the toy castle.  
‘Playing’ apparently consisted of Tony usurping Loki’s abandoned hobby horse and galloping around the castle as Lizard had been plopped, watchful, into one of the large wooden turrets. Lizard watched Tony’s playing for a short while before transforming back into the much more familiar Loki with a stroppy sigh. “Tony, it was me!” Loki pouted, in a state of disbelief.   
At the familiar stroppy voice Tony froze, hobby horse clattering to the floor. He whipped around to find Wanda’s Barbie on the floor and Loki balanced messily on top of the wooden castle with an unhappy looking frown on his face. Tony’s face too was frozen, but as he registered what had happened he broke out into a smile of utter joyousness. “Loki!” He squealed, bouncing in surprise toward him. “Loki, that was you!”

“Yes.” Loki mumbled grumpily, pulling himself out of the wooden castle with a soft whimper, straightening his clothes. “It was me.” He jutted out his chin and looked up, prideful. “I TOLD you I had real magic.”  
“That was—“ Tony began to say.

“That was YOU!” Wanda snarled, racing toward Loki and stomping her foot, having overheard the two little boys’ conversation. “You put that horrible, slimy… thing on me!” She wailed, her voice a little too high pitched and bratty. At seven, Wanda was very much used to getting her way whether that meant an extra cookie with lunch or getting one of her friends into trouble. But while Wanda was able to wind herself around Steve and Bucky’s little fingers, Coulson did not stand for it at PORTAL. (As it was, the caregiver stood in the kitchen preparing veggies for lunch, heard Wanda whining, and simply put it out of his mind for now. Should the kids start screaming or tearing one another’s heads off, he would reconsider.)  
Not getting the response she wanted, Wanda tried again. “Don’t you EVER put that horrible slimy thing on me again, Loki Odinson!” She pouted loudly in a babyish sort of voice, crocodile tears puddling in her eyes. She shoved the God hard with both hands and he went crashing backwards into the wooden castle causing the blocks to break apart and rain down on his head.   
Loki squeezed his eyes shut tight with pain; but also to stop his eyes from misting over with tears. “The word you’re looking for is, ‘lizard’, Maximoff.” He muttered dryly through gritted teeth once his head had stopped throbbing, running a hand through his silken black locks. The tips of his fingers had begun to twinkle pale green and ran glittered strands through his hair.   
“Whatever!” Wanda snarled, folding her arms. “Tony was right anyway. You don’t have REAL magic.”  
Loki’s mouth opened. Then closed. Then he tried his hardest to think of a comeback. “Yes I do!” He said at last, sounding a little too much ‘pouty child’ rather than the big bad Loki Odinson he had hoped. “My magic is... is... better than yours!” He bit.   
Wanda scoffed at him in return, disgusted, her hands slowly becoming encapsulated by a pale pink glow. She stared him down. ”Try me, Odinson." she challenged - but before Loki could even do so much as flex his wrists in her direction the girl had thrown out a large, glowing beam of light toward him. He squinted against it but the giant pink ball threw him backwards and he went crashing (with a dazed, whimpered 'ouch!') into one of the displays. Instantly he jumped to his feet, unscathed, face contorted into an angry frown. He raced toward Wanda, hands outstretched like claws... only for a pink forcefield to bubble against him, knocking him to his bum with an 'oof' once more. 

"There." Wanda announced cheerfully to the other boys, a smile spread wide over her face. "Now we can all play together."

Tony looked at the pink bubble surrounding his friend and bit his lip unsurely. Loki was screaming and yelling and hitting the thin pink walls that separated him off from the rest of the children, but none of his pitiful cries could be heard and none of his pitiful swipes at the forcefield did anything to harm it, nor did any of his own magic.   
"W- what... what is that?" the tiny tinkerer asked Wanda, putting his hand up to the gummy pink forcefield and watching as Loki matched his movements from inside his pink prison. 

"He won't be hurt." Wanda said casually, nibbling at her nails. "Now we can play and Loki won't get in the way." she beamed brightly, her smile ever so slightly plastic looking. Tony frowned, looking to the open kitchen archway where Mr. Coulson was preparing lunch and Rhodey was washing the lunchtime plates and cutlery.   
"I..." Tony wrung his hands nervously and looked to his feet, fidgeting toe to toe and back again. "I _like_ playing with Loki," he whispered softly. He... he did. Sure, sometimes Loki was naughty, or bossy, and sometimes when he wasn't in littlespace Loki could be a little bit scary, but he was... fun. Tony thought he didn't quite deserve to be locked away.  
The boys looked over to Loki, each of them in turn.   
"Yeah." Bruce agreed.   
Clint nodded silently.   
Folding his arms, Tony came over all brave and marched on over toward the kitchen. "I'm telling on you." He told Wanda matter-of-factly, running into the safety of the kitchen before Wanda could blast him with her magic. His friends weren't quite so brave, and hung back nibbling their fingernails or sucking their thumbs in wait.  
"Mr Coulson," Tony mumbled softly, rocking on his heels as he stared at the man's back, watching him cut carrots into thin discs. Rhodey set down a child sized fork and tossed a towel after it. "Tony?" he asked, his voice enchantingly soft and calm, moving toward the Little with open arms. "What's the matter?" Rhodey murmured, his eyes sparkling soothingly as he reached out to lift Tony into his arms. Tony was fidgeting with anxiety by this point; Rhodey was clearly reading the wrong signals. "Hey." he jokingly jiggled Tony when the boy was silent, "What's going on, do you need to potty?" he asked. At this question Tony flooded scarlet, unhappily shaking his head and straining in Rhodey's grip to urge him to the play area. "It's Loki!" he wailed, taking a shuddery sort of breath. "Wanda and Loki were fightin', 'n Wanda used magic on him!"

"Magic?" Coulson asked, voice steely, as he paused his carrot chopping almost in midair. Rhodey's face changed as he dropped Tony gently to the floor and the two ghosted after Coulson as the elder marched back into the main playing area. "Wanda Maximoff... Loki Odinson, you come here this instant!" he said. His voice wasn't shouty, but it was raised, and cut through the air like a knife. Freezing, Wanda dutifully trotted over to Coulson already mentally preparing the puppy dog eyed look. She smiled at him, although Phil had practiced his best grim 'I'm very disappointed' face and stayed straight faced. "Where is Loki?" he asked coldly, looking around the room. The God did not appear.  
"Loki?" He repeated.   
Nothing.  
"Loki!" His voice was rising to dangerous levels now.   
Loki wriggled inside his pink prison, desperately hitting the walls and yelling as loud as his voice would possibly let him, but still the others heard nothing. Tony watched the scene unfolding worrying his lip between his teeth. Just as Coulson sighed a sigh so deep it flared his nostrils, Tony let out a wail. There was no way he could sit around and watch Loki get into (even bigger) trouble. "He's in there!" he yelped, pointing at the pink bubble where Loki sat. The tension drained from Coulson somewhat. "Young lady," he said softly to Wanda (although that by no means meant he was calm) "You are going to free Loki this instant. What do we say about using magic at school?"

Wanda stuck out her lower lip as her chin wobbled, sulking at him. She didn't respond, so Coulson cleared his throat. "What do we say," he repeated dangerously quiet. His jaw was set, as though he was on the verge of yelling.

Wanda continued to sulk, flexing her wrists and watching grumpily as Loki was freed from his gummy pink prison. "Not to use magic for anything or anyone." she parroted, rolling her eyes at Loki and smirking as he tripped over his own ankles. Loki growled at her, gritting his teeth. If magic didn't work against her - and his knives had been taken away - Loki had to do the only other thing he knew. He launched himself at Wanda, shrieking furiously. Wanda screamed back, and the two descended into rolling around the carpeted floor hissing like feral kittens, clawing at one another or attempting to pull hair - all as the rest of the children watched in both amusement and horror. A thin, 'my patience is running out' sort of vein throbbed in Coulson's forehead as he marched over to the yowling pair. "Will you two stop fighting this instant!" Coulson said through gritted teeth, peeling Loki and Wanda apart. "There's not going to be ANY magic using while you're here. You can both spend some time in the time out corner." He declared, lifting a yelling Loki up from under the armpits and giving a weary look toward Rhodey as, alongside him, the man lifted Wanda. The fighting pair were, true to Phil's word, shoved into opposite corners of the nursery as he tried his hardest to channel Supernanny. Wanda wasn't too bad - there was only so far she could run inside PORTAL after all... but Loki...  
Loki was something else.   
Put Loki in the time out corner, and he would simply teleport off to the story corner. Get him from the story corner, return him to time out, feel triumphant at the fact he's actually sat there - silent - for ten whole minutes and return to see him sat in the dressing up area, a clone of his swinging his legs in time out. That was the general routine that tend to occur when Loki was due a punishment at PORTAL; and only usually wound down when Loki was worn out (almost never) or when Coulson had had enough (considerably often.)  
Today was no different. By the time Coulson had clawed his way to the 'winding down' stage, caught the tiniest glimpses of Loki's movements growing just the tiniest bit sluggish, Wanda had long finished her time out and was sat with Tony, Clint and Bruce at the snack table a quarter of the way into fish sticks and peas.

~

“Loki,” Coulson said in what was a remarkably restrained tone of voice as he kneeled down to the young God’s level, trying faintly to calm the fire that he knew was coming as he looked into the pouting child’s face. “Calm down now, there’s a good boy. You wouldn’t want me to call Thor here to see you being a bad little boy now, would you?” He warned lightly.  
Loki’s green eyes were glimmering on the verge of him growing sedate; but the mention of big-brother-and-caregiver Thor made his eyes blaze with fresh fire. He froze. _Bad...? Bad...? No. Thor never called Loki bad. He wasn’t bad... he.. he..._  
His eyes welled with tears, although he was quick to blink them away, and a frown started to eat up his face. At the same time, the colour in his cheeks started to fade out, a faint blue colour leaking out over them instead. Once the blue had appeared, it started to bloom rapidly as though it were taking over his entire face.

Ah.  
Coulson hesitated, then braced himself. Perhaps... perhaps he shouldn’t have said that. 

“Do it. Call him here.” Loki muttered coldly, hugging himself and looking at his fidgeting feet; concentrating on the way his toes bunched up tightly in his polished little shoes in a desperate attempt to ignore the funny feeling in his belly that made him feel like he was going to cry.

But his voice had changed from the childish, whining voice everybody was so used to; this was an awful mix of both big and little Loki, to the point where Coulson wasn’t too sure which one he was speaking to at the moment. He swallowed thickly, still braced for the tantrum that no doubt was going to ensue, although still said nothing. At the silence, Loki looked up. If Coulson squinted hard enough, he could just about see the tears gathered in his reddening eyes. “Do it! Call him here! I don’t care! I don’t care about you, I don’t care about him, I don’t care about any of you!” the young boy shouted, launching himself forward. Coulson supposed Loki had intended to land on top of Coulson and punch sweet hell out of him, but missed. Instead the child landed in a heap on the floor, yelling and kicking. “Loki, you’re going to hurt your hands if you keep that up. Sit up and calm down, please.” Coulson said, offering out his hands to help Loki up. 

Loki refused. The more he tantrummed, the more pain radiated in his hands, but still it was not enough to deter him. He screamed and yelled and yelled and screamed... frustration coursing through his veins. _He was BAD. Why wasn’t Coulson yelling at him and dragging him to the time out corner for the rest of the afternoon? He was bad, he was unloveable, he was—_

A rumble of thunder sounded, booming over the room and stunning not just Loki, but Coulson and the rest of the children into silence. “Loki Odinson,” the thunderingly stern voice of who else but Loki’s big brother thundered in, and then with a blindingly bright flash of thunder and light the God appeared. “What the Hel is going on?” he asked in a steely sort of voice. His younger brother looked to be in the stages of a tantrum-comedown. His skin was mottled blue-pink and he was cowering on the carpeted floor with his hands over his face, quivering. Naturally. Thor’s punishments were, after all, much more... painful than a stern yelling and a swat to the bottom from Coulson. Thor would give his bottom a swat plus nineteen more for good measure, and make him stay in time out.  
Hearing no reply, Thor tried again. “Loki, what have you done?” He chided. Loki blubbered unhappily, lifting his bowed head from the carpet. The child looked... pitiful, for lack of a better word. His face was puffy, his eyes leaked and were bloodshot. “Nuffin, Thor.” Loki insisted stubbornly.

“Brother,” said Thor in a tone that Coulson recognised all too well, a tone that meant that Thor believed not one word of what Loki was saying and yet was much too tired to properly admonish him here in front of everybody. “I am not in a joking mood. Would you like to tell the truth or do I need to ask Mr. Coulson?”  
Unsurprisingly Loki said nothing, simply sitting up and (after some thought) stubbornly sticking his fingers into his mouth so he wouldn’t have to say anything more on the subject. He stared moodily at Thor and watched as the God turned to Coulson, smiled apologetically, and asked for his side of the story. 

“It really isn’t a big deal, Thor,” Coulson replied calmly, shrugging and looking at the culprit sat up on the carpet. “Loki just, eh... got a little overheated while he was playing with Tony earlier on. He and Wanda had a bit of a disagreement and I don’t think he liked being punished.”  
Thor seemed to be nodding all the while, as though this situation wasn’t entirely new to him. He kneeled down to his younger brother’s level. “Is that true, brother?” He asked, softly, in his best, ‘I’m not going to yell at you’ voice. 

Loki sniffled, all heavy and wet and it made him sound as though he had come down with a particularly heavy cold. “Wanda hit me,” he mumbled in a tiny sulky voice, recoiling into himself. “Was only doin’ some magic. Hit her stupid dolly. Then, then I got put in timeout and he—” the pouting young man gestured to Coulson with an angry flourish, “said I was bad.”  
Loki’s voice quivered again, and his chin wobbled as if he struggled to even say the words. Thor never, ever called him bad. In fact, Thor always told Loki to not call himself bad. It had been a long exhausting (and mentally draining) struggle for the pair to get Loki to believe that perhaps he wasn’t truly bad; misbehaved, very much so, but never bad. Of course, all it took was one little nudge for all of their hard work to come crashing down again.

In the short time it took for Loki to explain what had happened, Coulson had disappeared and reappeared once more. This time, it was with a plastic baggie and what looked to be a set of Loki’s clothes. “Loki had a small accident earlier on,” Phil told a curious Thor, mouth in a thin line to keep himself from chuckling lest he upset Loki further. “He was a little frightened when Bruce had a tantrum.”  
“Ah,” smiled Thor fondly, this piece of information making him reconsider whether Loki was getting punished at home too (that would be a, ‘no’,) as he held his hand out for Loki to take. “Hulk?”  
Loki baulked, shivering as he clutched his big brother’s hand in his own. He had gone a rather funny shade of white, continuing to baulk as Mr. Coulson hummed in agreement. “Why,” Thor said to Loki, the deep rumblings of a belly laugh emanating from somewhere within him, “The Hulk is fantastic. I should think you’d be great friends!”  
At this declaration Loki shivered again; causing his big brother to chuckle which encouraged a smile to tickle the corners of his lips all the same. “Definitely not,” the precocious child murmured overdramatically, throwing his head back as his big brother ushered him out of the nursery and positively lapping up all of Thor’s chuckles.  
“Say goodbye to your friends, Loki,” big brother instructed, and so he did; beaming with pride when he got a murmur of ‘bye bye’s in return. “Are you not forgetting something?” Thor asked when Loki strained to leave, gesturing toward Coulson.

“Yes,” Coulson smiled, holding out a piece of paper. “I think you did forget something.” He waved the paper at Loki and Loki’s expression grew into one of comic shock.

“Oh!” the small gasped, grasping the paper in both hands and waving it in the direction of his big brother. “Look at the picture I drew.” He said shyly.  
Thor beamed, looking over the picture with a gentle smile. His little brother had always been fond of sketching, and that was something that he was fond of even as a Little. But while grown up Loki could work his magic with the finest pencil strokes, Little Loki hadn’t quite worked that out yet. His pictures were largely scribbled messes, although everything was decipherable. “Oh yes, Sleipnir and a Valkyrie, amazing!” Thor boomed theatrically, relishing the grin on Loki’s face as they left to go home. “Say ‘thank-you’, Loki.”

“Oh!” Loki said again as he strode over toward Coulson, standing straight and tall as though he were made of cardboard. “Thank you Mr. Coulson.” He murmured politely, taking the man by the hand. Coulson could only chuckle; Loki was the only little he’d met that insisted on shaking him by the hand. Perhaps it was some sort of Asgardian custom? Regardless, he told the little boy that it was no problem and that he couldn’t wait for his Valkyrie training next session, before he returned to the quiet nursery room.

"Right," Coulson said, clapping his hands together and smiling in satisfaction as four little faces came to look toward him. "I think it's naptime."

~

(He thanked his lucky stars that Loki wasn't around for naptime because - whether it was an Asgardian thing or a Jotunn thing - Loki despised being put down for a nap and rarely slept.)

He brushed the peas off of Tony's chair where the child had messily tried to feed himself. 

He patted Bruce's head when Bruce - calm - tugged on his sleeve and shyly requested for him to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar for what felt like the thousandth time and (rather than wailing in despair and asking the young one to choose a book that they hadn't read religiously for two months straight) encouraged him to get it.

He nodded at Clint when Clint decided he was feeling a little more grown up, didn't want to nap at all and, 'could he please go into the playground instead?'

He shook his head at Wanda when she requested the same thing, for Wanda was definitely in need of a nap. She quickly relented when he promised she could wear her new pajamas, the ones that Papa had gotten her that made it look as though she were a fairy princess. Then he dimmed the lights, got Wanda settled in a bed and Bruce in another. Tony had begun feeling slightly more little as their naptime routine had unfolded and, just when Phil was about to open the first page of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, began to whimper and purse his lips unhappily. His big brown eyes glossed over with tears and made him look... vulnerable, somehow. Coulson set down the book and eyed Tony, sat in his lap. "What's the matter, Tony?" he whispered, watching the small bunch one hand into a fist and exhaustively rub at his eyes. 

Tony looked as if he was trying very hard to find his words. "Baba," he eventually said, in a tiny, thin sort of voice. His voice trailed off into a sob at the end; he snivelled, as though he was on the verge of tears. "You want a bottle?" Coulson repeated softly, although he wasn't expecting an answer. 

"Don't worry," Rhodes said, holding up a freshly prepared bottle of milk. He loved doing that; the soft sloshing of the milk in the bottle pulled Tony's attention instantly toward him, every time, and the baby's eyes filled with awed sparkles. A smile came to Rhodes' face. "I'll take care of these guys. You go play with Clint. He'll probably use you as target practice again." the elder chuckled. Coulson rose with a nod of agreement, plopping a sleepy Tony into Rhodey's lap. "Okay, then."

"Hey, little guy," Rhodes beamed as he sat on the floor with Tony pooled in his arms, nudging the lip of the bottle against Tony's lips. Tony's gaze remained captivated, and the glint in his eye only softened when he realised that the nipple of the milk bottle was pressing into his mouth. Hesitantly, the young boy took a few suckles, earning a thick stream of creamy, vanillary milk. His eyes widened comically with surprise, as if this occurrence was new to him and hadn't happened every other time he'd had naptime at Portal. Still, Rhodey chuckled. "Yeah!" he cooed in a voice that danced all soft and sweet, "Milk, is it yummy?"

A tiny, sleepy nod. Tony's eyelids grew heavy and he began looking at Rhodey through his long cherub lashes. Rhodey smiled, turning his attention to the others, who all seemed to be giving him the same sleepy looks. Good. Naptime should go hitch-free today.  
Clearing his throat, Rhodey began to read. 

_"In the light of the moon, a little egg lay on a leaf..."_  
Rhodey got to Thursday, when the caterpillar had eaten four strawberries, before all the children were asleep. It was now the last hour before the children were due to be picked up, and so Coulson, Rhodes and the rest of the caregivers tended to let the children sleep until their designated caregiver arrived to pick them up. This usually went without a hitch (aside from some slight kitten-whimpers when Rhodey slipped Tony into bed and Tony lost his warmth) and today seemed like it would be no different.  
"I'll get to tidying up," Rhodey told Coulson, as he watched the elder tuck the children's lunch plates under his arm, and the pair relished the silence as they slung plate under faucet and toy into basket. At a quarter to four, fifteen minutes before pick up, a whimper broke the silence; a soft, breathy little whimper. "Mr. Coulson...?"  
Wanda.  
Coulson poked his head round the kitchen doorway. "Yes, Wanda?"  
Her voice sounded thick with tears, so Coulson guessed she had been having a bad dream. Not that she would ever tell him that, as she was hesitant to open up to anybody here but Steve.   
"I want my daddy," Wanda murmured - ah, right on cue - fidgeting with the duvet and alternating it with tugging nervously at the tutu of her nightdress. Her eyes misted with tears and her lip quivered, encouraging Phil to sweep on over to her in two short strides, kneeling in front of her bed. "Darling, he'll be here in fifteen minutes, what's the matter?" the caregiver asked in his silkiest, sweetest voice in the hope that it encouraged Wanda to speak. She rocked forward slightly and whimpered again, feeling wetness bunch up underneath her. "Nothing, Mr. Coulson," her eyes watered, "I just need daddy."  
Coulson sighed to himself, not sure he'd feel comfortable with letting the situation go for much longer. "Are you sure?" He probed ever so gently, but earned himself nothing more than a pouty sounding, 'hmpf' and tears spilling over.   
"Alright, then." Coulson relented regretfully as he saw the look on Wanda's face, nodding. He tucked her Build a Bear (a tie-dye pink and cotton-candy scented bunny rabbit) back into her arms from where it had fallen and smiled fondly as she reached out for it, burying her tearful face into the floppy ears. 

Coulson stayed with her right until Steve arrived, cautiously opening the doors to the nursery at 4 o'clock on the dot, as punctual as ever.   
"Hello, Steve," Coulson smiled politely, one hand ruffling Wanda's hair. It still took him a moment to get used to greeting Steve, even if it was to quell the childish flame of happiness that ignited in his belly.   
"Hi," Steve greeted politely, with a smile to match. His eyes lit up as he scanned Tony asleep in a bassinet and then Wanda. "Hey there little lady," he cooed, eyes full of stars as he made his way toward her. "How's my favourite girl?" The sight of her, all puffy and teary, made his hair stand on end. He knew something was the matter almost instantly. Wanda sniffled at him, looking at him, then Coulson, then toward her lap. "I had 'n askident." she mumbled at long last, unhappily, shifting to reveal a damp patch. "In the bed."  
"Oh, darling, why didn't you tell somebody? They would've given you a nice bath," Steve cooed with sympathy as Phil nodded emphatically at the little girl's side. Wanda shook her head, full of fiercely feisty determination. "Needed you, Daddy," she pleaded, reaching out toward him. He sighed to himself but lifted her up with ease, paying no mind to the dampness of her small body.   
"What are we going to do with you." he cooed, rocking her slightly. Wanda sniffled again, sticking her thumb in her mouth. Big girls of seven didn't wet in their beds so... so perhaps she wasn't so much of a big girl after all.   
Steve twirled with Wanda in his arms, making her giggle slightly despite everything. "Phil, do you mind if I bath Wanda?" he asked, eyeing Tony still asleep in the bassinet. Coulson shook his head and gestured in the direction of the bathroom. "Not at all. Go ahead."

The room was distantly filled with the gentle sound of running water, then splashes, then giggles, and Tony remained asleep through it all. Natasha appeared, to take Bruce and the newly grown Clint, and still Tony slept on. As the door swung open, Bruce looked up and his mouth fell into a grin. "Mama!" he squealed, rushing toward the slinky assassin and wrapping himself around her. Natasha smiled rather sedately, ruffling his hair. "Hello, Светлячок" she cooed. "Have you had a nice day?" she smiled down at the child, who nodded into her midriff, and then looked up at Coulson for the true story.  
He straightened out, and smiled in a thin line. "Yes, he has had a good day. He drew some pictures with the rest of the children this morning."  
Bruce peeled himself away from the hug he was giving to his Mama to whine mournfully. "Loki ruined mine," he snivelled, squeezing Natasha's hand and yanking her toward where the paintings had been left to dry. There, in between the pile of glitter and a worryingly bloated Captain America, was Bruce's ruined picture; a mess of blue, orange, red and yellow all blurring into one. Natasha looked at it, and a smile danced across her features. "I dunno, Brucey... looks cool to me. Something that belongs in an art gallery." she winked. Bruce's face had fallen sullenly, but his Mama's words began to lift him up into a smile. "Really...?" he whispered, wrinkling his nose at the picture.  
Natasha gave him a squeeze and nodded, folding Bruce's artwork into her bag. "Really. Let's go and find Clint and go home, darling. We can pin this on the fridge." she cooed.  
But just on cue, in wandered Clint from the playground. The sparkle in his eyes had gone, and his jaw was set slightly; there was no mistaking the fact that he had grown up some. "Hi Nat," he croaked, his voice teetering on the edge of becoming fully grown. Natasha smiled as warmly at him as she had Bruce all the same. "Hi, Clint."  
"Bruce hadda tantrum at Loki today," Clint chuckled, rubbing his eyes as he walked over to the pair. "Hulked out."

"He did?" Natasha's eyes widened as she looked from Clint down at Bruce to Coulson, and the three nodded in unison - Bruce's head drooping in shame. Natasha bit her lip. Perhaps Bruce didn't deserve another punishment, Coulson was likely to have punished him anyway. She sighed, and ruffled his hair. "That's alright, darling. Let's go home and get some ice cream." 

Bruce's eyes widened. Clint, despite feeling grown up, looked rather pleased too - hey, free icecream!  
"Birthday cake?" Bruce asked timidly.  
Natasha grinned wickedly and nodded. "Say bye bye to everybody, you two."  
Bruce turned on his toes and waved at Rhodes and Coulson - and Tony, despite the fact the child was still asleep. Clint, much more reserved, smiled shyly and waved only slightly before they too disappeared from the nursery. 

Then, only two remained. 

~

Wanda came skipping out of the bathroom freshly dressed, in a nightie with Cinderella on it. There were bubbles in her ears and the faint scent of strawberry bubblebath seemed to cling to her. Her hair was damp and trailed dribbles down her back, although it had been loosely plaited and held in place by a cherry bobble. She went over to the large bassinet that Tony laid in and shook him, yelling obnoxiously. "Wakey wakey, Tony! We hafta go home!"  
Tony whimpered in reply, his eyes crinkling as he tried to squeeze them even tighter shut than he was already. He curled in closer to the duvet, breathing in the clean milky sort of smell clinging to the sheets. "Go'way," he slurred, dribbling a little from one corner of his mouth.  
Papa wasn't back yet. He would wake up when Papa got back.  
"Wanda!" a very familiar, very gentle sort of voice admonished, creeping in close to the bassinet. "Gently, like this."

A large, comforting hand began to rub gently on Tony's belly, making him feel warm. Squirming, Tony giggled sleepily as he tried to bat himself away from the ticklish rubbing, but slowly his eyes began to open and he saw, through his long lashes...

"Papa!" Tony squealed, sitting up with a mighty bedhead and reaching out toward Steve. Grinning, Steve helped the small out of the bassinet and gave him a hug, ruffling his hair into something that was slightly tidier. "Hey there, pumpkin." he cooed. "Nice day?"

Tony nodded overexcitedly. He pulled Steve toward where his picture lay, all the while gabbling at a mile a minute. Steve just about managed to decipher the words, 'lizard', 'Valkyrie', 'Loki' and 'picture' before the child started to wind down a little. He nodded all the same, despite not understanding a word, and smiled encouragingly. Unusually, behind him, Wanda was silent. Even as Steve gathered up both Tony and Wanda's things, she was silent. Did she not feel so little any more? Stuffing her soiled clothes into her pink backpack, Steve gathered Tony on his hip and looked sideways at the redheaded little girl. "What's the matter, hm?" he cooed, softly, kneeled to her level.

Wanda stared at him for a long time. Then she broke gaze and stared at her feet.  
"Was bad today." she said eventually, voice tiny. She braced herself for Steve to start shouting, and curled in tighter - but peeked up when he did not.   
"Bad?" he prompted gently, in the same tone he always used, the one that was soft and sweet. His eyebrows were knitted together in surprise; the only hint that he might have been anything other than calm. Snivelling, Wanda nodded. "Bad," she repeated. "Hadda fight with Loki. Used magic too."  
Her chin jutted up slightly, pouting. Steve looked her over, and then looked at Coulson, although neither grown up spoke. Tony suspected that they, too, must have been magic, since the pair seemed to decipher exactly what the other was saying without actually speaking. Unfair.  
"Well," Steve began, in a tone that suggested he was still thinking of what to say even as he said it, "I'm sure Mr. Coulson punished you and Loki enough. How about we get you both changed and then go and get some ice-cream? Nat and Bruce and Clint are already on their way over."  
Two matching smiles spread out on Tony and Wanda's faces, and the pair began to burble excitedly. At Steve's word they parroted polite goodbyes to both Coulson and Rhodey, before departing; the last words Coulson could hear from Tony being an excited, "Can we invite Loki too? He's gonna teach me t'be a Valkyrie."  
("Wow, sure kiddo, do you think he'll teach me too?")

Then, it was silent. 

"What a day," Rhodey said, beginning to lock up.  
Alongside him, Phil nodded. "I need a vodka." he said. "Who's in tomorrow?"

Rhodey eyed the rota on the wall. "Tony again. Nat. New guy, Scott?"

Ah. That wasn't too bad.

"Wanda too."

Oh. "Make that, 'a vodka and six more.'

"Oh, and Loki."

Fuck it. He was drinking a whole bottle. Neat. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked this. I love comments and kudos so please please tell me what you thought. This was my first time writing Loki, little or otherwise, so he might be a bit... iffy. I loved it though - Loki is so fun to write. I guessed he’d have a bit of a complex about being called bad, though.
> 
> My Russian is rusty but Светлячок, the nickname Natasha uses, is ‘firefly’, according to a friend of mine. Google Translate also tells me it means ‘glow worm’. Same thing, right?


End file.
